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Topic: Firearms (Read 1012 times)

My wife and I were interested in learning to shoot handguns (I've hunted only with shotguns before) and had thought to buy our own once we had tried out a few.

I understand the headache of trying to take a firearm into the Philippines so I'm glad that we didn't get around to doing that. However, once retired and in the Philippines, I can see us becoming interested in at least learning to shoot. Given that we expats cannot own firearms in the Philippines, does anyone here still enjoy access to them for sport or otherwise?

Some people I've heard talking about expats and the shooting sports in the Philippines have suggested becoming chummy with a nice PNP officer for the best results.

I have gone shooting with some PNP in Mindanao and they were happy to have me along as long as I was the one paying for my ammo and I even paid for some of theirs. Also I have a friend in Cebu who has some firearms who has invited me out shooting, and some Cebu ranges I am told will rent firearms to people including fully automatic but they can eat a lot of cash in rounds.

If I was you then I would try to go to a range in the US and rent a few different handguns until you see which type you might like, that will be less expensive to do and then your wife could buy one once you both move to the Philippines.

It will all depend on where you are going to live, in Cebu City there are indoor ranges and of course getting friendly with the local police chief, mayor or other govt officials in your area could not hurt.

The big problem I have found is that ammo in the Philippines is quite expensive and usually sold by the round unless you buy reloaded ammo and after I have personally seen how some guns can blow up when the ammo maker is not careful and reuses the brass too much, I would hesitate to shoot reloads in the Philippines even more than I do in the US. I had a revolver blow up right in front of me as I was teaching a fellow to shoot, and had the guy next to us still been there at the time, then no telling how badly he would have gotten hurt, that was the last time I ever shot or allowed anyone with me to shoot reloads and that was 40 plus years ago.

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Happily married since 1994 & live part of the year in Cebu and the rest in S. Florida.